


Sharing is Caring

by alexpeanut



Category: Five Horsemen - Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Abusive Parents, Cluster AU, F/M, I tagged for character death but spoilers no one actually dies, Multi, Not exactly a feelgood fic at the moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-28 03:36:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12597240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexpeanut/pseuds/alexpeanut





	Sharing is Caring

"Does it hurt?" Wide eyes peer over the edge of the counter. Kadira startles, snot and tears mingling on her upper lip as she tries to bandage her arm. Her fingers shake and she loses her grip on the roll of cloth, sending it bouncing to the floor by the little boy's feet. They both stare at in silence until he stoops to pick it up, clumsily balling the scattered ends. "Can I help?"

Kadira watches him for a long minute, then wipes her face with her free arm before extending the other. The cigarette burns stand out an angry red even through the two layers of thin bandage she's already managed to wrap. He studies it for a minute and then scoots closer and slowly thickens the wrap, achingly careful not to pull too tightly. 

She sniffles into the contemplative silence. 

He finishes wrapping and awkwardly tapes the free end down. "There. All better." A bright smile peeks out from under the thick fringe of his hair and he pats her knee. "I'm Zack!" He opens his mouth like he's going to say something, then glances over his shoulder. 

Kadira looks up but the doorway is empty, and she can't hear anything except the TV blaring across the house. When she looks back down the boy is gone.

* * *

She meets him again. The cast on his arm is brand new and he's groggy with painkillers, tucked in small and vulnerable in his bed. She looks around at his room, at the posters and shelves of toys and the child-size play motorcycle in the corner. There's an airplane hanging from the ceiling and she watches it sway lazily, clutching her pillow to her chest as she sits crosslegged on the bed. 

He notices her only after a long minute, blinking several times like he's having trouble focusing before he holds up a corner of the blanket in invitation. His pjs have little motorcycles on them. She crawls in next to him, placing her pillow so all three of them are tucked in. They lie side by side for a while while Kadira thinks. Finally decided, she rolls on her side to speak, only to find Zack is solidly asleep. Unbothered, Kadira drags her pillow closer and drifts off too.

* * *

Zack stands at her elbow, looking down the table with her at the lavish place settings and decedant cake in front of her. There's eight candles burning atop the tallest of the four layers and Kadira feels itchy and too hot in her frilly dress. Her mother sits to her left, a tight smile on her face, her father on her other side. The room is crowded with photographers and half the mansion's staff, all arranged like animals on display.

The servants are singing happy birthday from their places against the walls and Kadira doesn't so much as twitch, even when Zack beams and bounds forward to look at the gigantic cake. 

"It's huge! This is awesome 'Dira! I wish every birthday was like this!" She doesn't answer and he glances back at her with a puzzled smile. "'Dira? I know you can't talk without looking like you're crazy but you should be smiling!"

As if he's been heard Kadira's mother leans forward and hisses. "Smile, Kadira. They're taking pictures."

She pastes a smile on her face and tries to look interested. She takes the plate with the first slice of cake when it's offered and delicately uses her fork to section off a tiny sliver, then pretends to eat it while the flashbulbs go off. Zack flits around the room poking at the piles of presents and making silly faces at the room's occupants. He's trying so desperately to make her laugh but she barely tracks him with her eyes, focused on looking pretty for the cameras. 

It's an agonizing ten minutes before the photographers filter out, along with most of the servants, leaving them mostly alone in the large dining room. Kadira's still holding the plate, cake mostly untouched, and she looks down at it as her mother stands and barks orders to clear the table. Zack peers over Kadira's arm at the cake, eyes wide. "You didn't eat it! It looks so good." She shrugs at him, a slight motion of her shoulder but it's enough to draw her mother's attention. 

She goes for the plate and Kadira...doesn't let it go. She looks down at her own fingers clenched around the china to avoid looking up and doesn't see the slap coming. Her mother backhands her hard enough to split her lip and twist her sideways, a dribble of blood arcing past Zack. Kadira locks eyes with him for a long moment, panting silently into the pain, then straightens slowly in the chair. 

Her mother clenches a fist into her hair, pulling her head back. "You don't eat cake." The words are icy, devoid of anything familial. "Little girls don't deserve cake if they have to be reminded to smile for the camera." 

Kadira doesn't cry. Her lip bleeds slugishly and her mother shoves a napkin at her. "Cover that up before you bleed on your dress. It's worth more than you."

She leaves, her husband swept up in her wake. He pauses by Kadira, dropping a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Happy birthday, Butterfly." He pats her awkwardly then leaves.

Kadira turns dead eyes to Zack but he's gone, the room empty. Her face throbs in time with her heartbeat and she doesn't cry.

* * *

She's pulled into his backyard which is buzzing with people and laughter. Zack is running circles around the pool chased by a dog and five other kids while all around them adults mingle and chat and Kadira doesn't know what to do. The sun isn't as warm as back home but it's plenty hot enough that more than one person has retreated to the pool or below the pergola. She spots Zack's father grilling hamburgers and hot dogs and his mother laughing with a group of other women, several of whom are holding babies. It's loud and chaotic and bright and she flinches back into her bedroom, hunching over her homework. It's hard to ignore the chatter but she withdraws, filling her mind with silence instead.

* * *

Zack sits down next to Kadira, mirroring her arms-wrapped-around-her-knees pose. He bumps her shoulder with his and staunchly ignores her immediate flinch. She relaxes after a long moment, not leaning into him but not leaning away. 

"It's raining pretty hard." They both looked up at the window, watching the Netherland's endless rain sheet past. It's cool this close to the floor, the wooden boards smooth under her bare feet. 

"Heat wave here." Kadira says, her voice small in the circle of her arms. "Too hot to be reasonable." The rolling wave of warmth is accompanied by the smashing of dishware, only just muffled by a couple walls and a closed door. She digs her toes into the comforter, distantly noting how chipped her nail polish is getting.

Zack, never one for standing still, bounds up to go rifling through her room. His rummaging does little to drown out the screaming but he's back in a moment, urging her up to sit in his desk chair. He drops down at her feet, carefully uncapping the bottle of nail polish remover. This side of their bond it's simpler to ignore the noises from across her house and she settles a little easier in the chair, gamely offering him a foot. 

The rain continues to fall, relentless and kind of hypnotizing and Kadira drifts, moving when Zack directs her and occationally offering wordless hums of agreement when he pauses in his rambling. At some point he finishes her nails - peacock blue and flawlessly even - but doesn't move from his spot at her feet, leaning against the side of her leg as he carefully paints his nails to match. 

Zack prattles along about school and friends and how much he wants a dog, seemingly completely content to carry on their one-sided conversation. Kadira can't focus too well on him, pulled back to her bedroom every time a loud noise from the other side of the wall heralds renewal of the argument, but it's better than being alone. 

When her door eventually slams open, her mother's fingers digging into her arm, she holds Zack in his room, anchoring a hand on his shoulder. "Thanks. For the nails." He looks up at her, expressionate face wide open and full of sorrow and it's easy as breathing to smile back, eyes and all. 

"'Dira-" 

"Later, Zack."

* * *

"What's your mom do anyway?" They're lying side by side on a beach towel, sand encroaching at the edges. Kadira's banished her bodyguard up the beach and they can almost pretend to be alone with just the sun and sea for company. Lying on her stomach Kadira turns her face so she's looking at him, head pillowed on her arms. 

"Politics." She shrugs a little, the motion awkward in her position, and squints against the sun. "Getting what she wants, no matter the cost."

Zack stares up at the sky, sunglasses giving little away. He's stripped down to his boxers in the absence of swim trunks, arms folded behind his head. "She yells a lot, huh."

Kadira lets her eyes drift shut. "Yes." The silence stretches. They don't talk about this, the same way that they don't talk about the bruises her bikini reveals - aging and new both - or the tired lines under her eyes the sun's glow is doing nothing to hide. They also don't talk about how he's lying next to her on a beach in South Africa the same time as they sit on the back porch in his house in the Netherlands, or how she can feel the worry in his gut as clearly as the sun on her back. 

She cracks open one eye to study his profile, taking in his slight frown and the few very faint freckles the sun is doing its best to bring forth. Zack stays uncharacteristically quiet, mulling something over.

It's been nearly twenty minutes when he speaks again. Kadira's sat up to reapply sunscreen but he's still lying down, inscrutable. "You ever wonder why this happened?"

She doesn't bother pretending not to know what he means, but also doesn't have an answer. She slowly covers her legs, buying time. 

By the time she's done Kadira still doesn't know what to say. She stands instead, brushing sand free, and turns to extend a hand to him. He doesn't react and she sighs a little. "Zack."

His head tilts a little and she watches her reflection in his sunglasses as he realizes what she wants and reaches up for her hand, letting her pull him upright. The sand slides under the blanket and he ends up a little closer than he expected but she stops him from stepping back. "We're... you..." She's never been good at words and stops with a frown.

She reaches up instead and pulls his sunglasses off, gentle. Zack blinks at the shift in light, squinting down and away and she manages to catch him by surprise when she leans in. The kiss is too light and off-center and the bond hums with his shock. She flinches back from the emotion, pushing his sunglasses against his chest like a barrier between them but he knows her, lives in her head half of the time and he grabs her wrist easily, tangling their fingers around the arm of the glasses as he pulls her back in. This time his lips are curved up in a smile and he guides her easily. 

Their second kiss is just as soft and brief but the bloom of affection through the bond is nothing she was expecting and Kadira feels tears pricking her eyes. She recoils instinctively, feels bad for it, but Zack steps back easily, unbothered. He's grinning to himself even as he gives her the space she needs to get her body back under her control, the sour mood of earlier banished as if it never existed.

She scowls at his obvious happiness but her words hold no bite. "Who cares why. We just have to live with it." She's blushing, hopes it's not too visible. 

Zack hums to himself, sliding his sunglasses back on. "I could think of worse people to have to live with." He grins at her, blinding and warm. "Last one to the water is a piece of dog poo!"

Kadira glances up the beach as he takes off. The heat waves do little to obscure the solid outline of her bodyguard and the gun he carries. Turning the other way she watches Zack splash into the shallows with playful childishness and her heart flips over. Worse people indeed.

* * *

"'Dira! 'Dira wake up!" Zack's excitement shakes her awake and she groans into her pillow, swatting at him. He just grabs her hand, dragging her into a vaguely upright position. "Look look look!" 

She squints against the blinding sun, glancing over at the alarm clock in her bedroom. "It's 3am."

"Not here it isn't!" Zack bounds away, nearly jumping over the motorcycle he's parked by the roadside in his excitement. It's late morning, the sky an endless stretch of blue. He poses by the bike, hands out as if she could somehow miss it. She scratches the back of one thigh with the opposite foot, straightening her camisole. 

"It's a bike."

"It's /my/ bike." Zack says proudly. "Well, at least for this trip. C'mon, it's a two-seater." He leaps astride in a move that would have killed a lesser man and Kadira blinks sleep crust from her eyes, bare toes curling as she picks her way across the asphalt to gingerly slide on behind him. There's no use fighting the infectious joy that slides through their bond and she wraps her arms around his waist, leaning into him. 

He's a good driver, a little reckless but there's nothing but miles of road and fields to hit. The warm wind whips through her thin clothes and the bike thrums between them and she feels untethered, held to the ground only by her grip on Zack. She tucks her face down betweem his shoulderblades to block the wind and can't help the laugh that bubbles out of her, winding behind them down the road. She can feel him grinning and it's perfect, the long miles of road curving like his smile. She falls back asleep to the roar of the engine and the steady heat of him in her arms.

* * *

* * *

* * *

He gets pulled away in the middle of breakfast, ends up standing on the roof of a skyscraper still clutching his bowl of froot loops. The wind whips his hair into his eyes, hot despite the height. The panicked fluttering of his heart numbs his hands and he drops his bowl and staggers through the porcelin shards towards the roof edge. 

Kadira stands on the low, wide railing, her bare toes curling over the edge. Her hair is a wild mass around her head and her dress flaps and stutters like an alive creature. She's lost weight and the push of the wind sways her with every gust and Zack can't catch his breath, feels like he's the one staring into the abyss. 

"Kadira!" His broken word flings towards her and she glances back. There's a fresh bruise on her face blossoming black across her cheekbones and nose. She smiles at him but it's the empty politician smile he hates. 

"Hey Zack." Her voice is too soft for the gusts but he hears it echoing around his kitchen, her standing by the sink while he stands by the table, chair thrust back. She's got one of the knives in her hands, turns it over and watches the play of steel so close to her wrists. 

"Kadira, you.... I.... please." He sounds like he's crying. Is crying, he realizes, when the salt drips into his mouth. He takes a half step forward, stops abruptly when she sways closer to the drop. "Please, 'Dira, don't!" 

She looks back over the skyline, back ramrod straight. "It's not your fault, Zack. Remember that for me." 

There's a burst of noise and light and he's back in his kitchen. Alone.

* * *

He can't reach her.

* * *

There's a hole in his head and it feels like being shot and every time he reaches out for the sunblasted warmth of her side of the bond there's nothing. It's like tripping over a stair he was convinced should be there and the uncomfortable swoop of his stomach never gets any easier. 

He sleeps less, grows facial hair and shaves it again, loses seven pounds. He learns how to walk without tripping and unlearns talking to the voice in his head but still wakes from nightmares with tears on his face. 

He realizes one day he doesn't remember what she smells like and cries until his chest aches more from exertion than grief. 

It doesn't get easier with time, no matter what the songs say.

* * *

It's been eighteen months when he wakes to his bed shaking, a warm body pressed to his side and hot tears on his neck. It's her, he knows it down to his bones, wraps her in a hug before his eyes are even open. She's thinner than he remembers and her head is shaved nearly bald and he opens his eyes to a tiled bathroom ceiling.

Kadira's breathing approaches hyperventilation and he sits up a little, cradles her to his chest and cups her skull and rubs her back, hands straying as his mind reels. Words slip free, reassurances and little shushing noises and he rocks them, taking in the sterile walls and the acrid smell from the toilet. It's more pleasant to sit in his bed propped against the headboard.

She's apologizing into his shoulder, words jumbled together with tears, and it's as easy as breathing to tip her head back and kiss her, snot and all. She tastes like vomit and tears and it should be disgusting but the fact that she's _alive_ is enough. 

When they break apart she's still crying a little but manages a frail smile, tipping her forehead to rest against his.

"How?" he whispers into the space between them, voice a little choked. His chest aches.

"My bodyguard broke the lock and grabbed me. They put me in an institution, made me take blockers... I've been trying to reach you for so long." She laughs a little, broken, hands brushing across his jaw. "I've been skipping doses, I'm breaking out tonight." She frames his face with her hands, pulls him up from the bathroom floor. "I'm going to get out and I'm going to find you. I-"

"I love you." Zack blurts, eyes locked with hers. 

Kadira's face crumples, eyes soft and watery. "I-" She cuts off, glancing over his shoulder towards the bathroom doorway. "Someone's coming. I'm going to find you, Zack. I swear, I'll find you." She kisses him again, soft and brief, and when he opens his eyes he's back in his darkened bedroom, heart pounding and lips tingling. It feels like he's been suckerpunched in the heart and for the first time in over a year he's not alone.


End file.
